Printable View
So? Heaps of companies have defaults which benefit them or their associates.. its quite normal....Quote:
Originally posted here by sniper001
Yes, you're right, but you have to do it manually. Otherwise the defaul tconfig brings you to msn.
You also seem to be forgetting that the defaults in this case are often what people want... I've seen heaps of people who actually like msn.com (why escapes me, but they do)...
The ligit corp license of XP dosen't use product activation, but includes a hook that you must upgrade every two years and pay in advance, still not recieve any discount from the PC manafacture and get another copy of XP (MS tax). Our company is bulking at it all and will take the two years to migrate away from MS products, and encourage contracts to include alt software.
OK...lets look at this....M$ sells software to its employees at cost plus a certain percentage to cover their expenditures and give the employees a price break. This is an admirable practice and I wouldn't begin to dispute its fairness. I will, however, use it as an example of how bad the price-gouging actually is. A FULL version of winXP (not the upgrade) is $299 at full retail, but the price in the cost plus scenario is less than $35 per copy. I know this because I have SEEN the receipt from an employee-purchased copy. This works out to a total profit margin in excess of 500% at full retail, to be divided between M$ and the wholesaler/retailer. If auto dealers practiced this same margin formula, a Yugo would sell for a price of $50,000 or above...not quite a fair system in my humble opinion. M$ is a CASH COW that pays NO dividends...the profits DO NOT go back to the investors...all they get is the face value of their stock, M$ keeps ALL the profits. Most other large companies have a debt load that they must service, yet they still manage to pay dividends to their shareholders. M$ has NO DEBT LOAD to meet. Yes development costs money, but its not as expensive as M$ would have you believe it is. I hope you don't take my tone as insulting, but I get pretty passionate and defensive when I'm on the receiving end of the shaft...especially one as big as this one.Quote:
Originally posted here by Matty_Cross
Now, once you've made a reasonable return on a product, the companies move on and begin the cycle again... that's when the prices go down..... so, of course one of their new OS's is going to be expensive, they are trying to make back their expenditures....
Lets do the maths on this shall we... lets say they earn next to nothing, *like me*, and are on around $17K US a year...
8000 X 17,000 =... ummm, one moment.. *breaks out calculator* $136,000,000 per year
Now, lets put that by a realistic number for what it takes MS to pump out an OS..
136,000,000 X 3 = $408,000,000..
Now, you look at just that.... and how much they charge for their operating systems... and you see that its not that much, especially considering I've left out many other financial factors...
Cost price + X% would cover the amount it costs them to make what you hold in your hand. That is, packaging, manual, CD etc.. It wouldn't factor in the price of developing it that greatly... I get a similar discount at my work, although that is a PC manufacturer... I get charged cost price of components + 20%... Now, that doesn't factor in a lot of the costs that are incurred ie, shipping, storage etc... So while the example is a good one, I don't think its really that accurate...Quote:
Originally posted here by allenb1963
OK...lets look at this....M$ sells software to its employees at cost plus a certain percentage to cover their expenditures and give the employees a price break. This is an admirable practice and I wouldn't begin to dispute its fairness. I will, however, use it as an example of how bad the price-gouging actually is. A FULL version of winXP (not the upgrade) is $299 at full retail, but the price in the cost plus scenario is less than $35 per copy. I know this because I have SEEN the receipt from an employee-purchased copy. This works out to a total profit margin in excess of 500% at full retail, to be divided between M$ and the wholesaler/retailer. If auto dealers practiced this same margin formula, a Yugo would sell for a price of $50,000 or above...not quite a fair system in my humble opinion. M$ is a CASH COW that pays NO dividends...the profits DO NOT go back to the investors...all they get is the face value of their stock, M$ keeps ALL the profits. Most other large companies have a debt load that they must service, yet they still manage to pay dividends to their shareholders. M$ has NO DEBT LOAD to meet. Yes development costs money, but its not as expensive as M$ would have you believe it is. I hope you don't take my tone as insulting, but I get pretty passionate and defensive when I'm on the receiving end of the shaft...especially one as big as this one.
MS may not pay dividends, but it puts the profits back into operations... This is, strangely enough, quite common.. Many companies do it.. And its not that they are giving their customers nothing, its just a different method of shares.... With those types of shares, your meant to buy when the shares price is low, *a good time would've probably been when the Anti-Trust Case was fully blown, and people actually thought MS would get split up*, and then sell them when you think their value has peaked... Its a different method, and one which can has quite successful results.. *ie, you may not get a small amount each month/year/whatever, but when you chose to sell when the share value is high, you can make a killing*Quote:
Taken from: Microsoft Investor Relations FAQ
Microsoft does not currently issue dividends on common stock or have a direct stock purchase plan, choosing instead to reinvest profits into operations. Although our Board of Directors periodically reviews this policy, Microsoft has announced no plans to change the policy.
On the markup... ever been seen the mark ups movie cinema's have? that popcorn that you just paid 5$ for... you just brought the next 3 weeks worth of popcorn for the company...
Also, the figures I gave where really not that realistic... if a Microsoft programmer is making that little money (~17K), then a level 1 help desk technician is earning just as much as them, so they are getting screwed.... it really should be more like 45K at least.... and it didn't factor in things like other general staff members / management and such....
As for your tone... why would I take it as insulting... You expressed your points quite well, didn't use foul language, and didn't resort to screaming M$ SUCKS GOATS or something similar you normally see from people involved in discussions on MS...
All in all, the conversation we are currently involved in is pretty pointless, because we'll most likely never know the figures we require to figure out exactly how good or bad Microsoft is charging the customer.... Also, we've kinda drifted away from the original thread topic... I think that's my fault though.. ;)